Never The Way You Plan
by Marchenplushie28
Summary: This is not how it was supposed to happen. Spoilers for 3x06.


**A/N: **_Oh, dear. You will notice that this is angst ridden and sort of plot-less and a little bit of I don't even know. I just finished watching "Mash Off" though and it was just...ugh. I can't even describe my emotions adequately and the ending was so dang abrupt I felt the need to write something more. I thought I'd post it afterward just in case anyone else was in the same predicament as me._ _(Also, apologies if there are spelling/grammar errors, as this hasn't been highly edited.)_

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><p>"You told her too, didn't you!"<p>

"Now everyone is going to know!"

Santana's hand moves faster than her mind, and suddenly there's skin against skin, the palm of her hand impacting against Finn's cheek. The sound rings out loudly in the silence, echoing in the frozen faces of the others, reverberating out of their gaping, cavernous mouths. She feel's sick. She wants to heave, but everything is so damn still that she can't bring herself to move.

And then Sugar gasps behind her, the sound delayed to the point of being almost comical, and if it were any other time Santana would make some joke about the bitch being slow in the head. It's not any other time though, and Santana is trying to decide whether she should follow through on the heaving or burst into tears. Before she can make the choice, Mr. Schue, who was silent up until Sugar's gasp, jumps up and begins to say something, and then Rachel is speaking too and Mercedes' voice rings out and everyone is talking in a monstrous cacophony of sound.

Santana spins around, not quite knowing where she's going. She catches a glimpse of Brittany, still standing on the stage, her face sad and confused, and suddenly Santana doesn't want to heave and she doesn't want to cry because she's laughing—laughing something bitter and hurtful and cruel—and then she's running far away from them all.

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><p>"Far away" ends up being the girl's bathroom on the second floor of the school, where she locks herself in the stall furthest down and slumps to the ground, the tiles cool against her skin. Her laughter has begun to fade away, the high of it wearing off and leaving her shaking.<p>

"Fucking, fucking, _hell_," Santana says, just because she needs to swear. Just because she needs to do something. Because this, Santana thinks, is not how it was supposed to go down. This is not how it was supposed to happen.

How it was supposed to happen was this: Santana loves Brittany, so Brittany falls in love with Santana. They do the same shit they've always done, because sex and hanging out is what couples do and they've already done that for forever. The only difference is they don't mess around with other people any more. And because it's what they've always done, no one notices. No one notices until maybe a couple years after they graduate, and people are thinking back and maybe noticing the way those two girls they used to know held hands too often and never hung out with anyone else after senior year came around. But by then they'd be gone. They'd move so far away no one would know them and everything would be _ok_.

That's what was supposed to happen, not…not _this._ She wasn't supposed to be outed by some scumbag campaign, advertising her sexuality to the entire fucking _world _when she hasn't even gotten up the courage to tell her parents yet.

So Santana sits there and cries for a while until her eyes get red and puffy, and she doesn't throw up or anything, even though she still expects that's coming some time or other, and she swears a lot when she has enough breath in her lungs to get the words out. She keeps crying even when the bathroom door opens, and someone sits down beside the locked door of her stall, the small manicured hand that she knows as Brittany's slipping beneath it to hold hers.

It's only after a half hour or so passes that she can bring herself to stop, and she knows her mascara is a wreck by then. But even when the tears have been reduced to sniffles, she stays where she is. She doesn't open the door. Partly it's because she's afraid to, and partly it's because she's too tired of all this shit to exert that kind of effort, though she only acknowledges the latter explanation.

Instead, she squeezes Brittany's hand and tries to keep whatever semblance of dignity she has left as she asks, "Brittany, you do love me too, right?"

And Brittany, beautiful, wonderful being that she is, answers, "Of course I do Santana. We're like magic unicorn versions of peas in a pod, so it would be really stupid if I didn't. And I'm not stupid."

Santana laughs, and then almost starts crying again. "Britt," she says, "this isn't how it's supposed to be. This isn't how it's _fucking_ supposed to be."

At the words, Brittany shifts on the other side of the door, readjusting her fingers to lace them between Santana's. "Maybe not," Brittany says, "but, you know, we don't have to hide holding hands at Breadsticks anymore. I mean, that's good, right?"

"You want to hold my hand in public?" Santana asks, and the words are low and thoughtful and broken. She thinks the throwing up thing might happen now, but it still doesn't come.

"I definitely want to hold your hand in public," Brittany says, and Santana can't reply to that for a moment, until finally the words come out of her mouth unbidden.

"Ok, then," she says shakily. "Ok."

And it isn't ok, and this isn't how it's supposed to be, but damn it Finn was wrong and life is stupid and she can fucking hold Brittany's hand in public if she wants to now.

"Ok," Santana repeats, just one last time, and squeezes Brittany's hand again before she lets go, standing up to open the door.


End file.
